Real World Sight Word Search

📝 This post, A Real World Sight World Sight Word Search, was originally published in 2012 and has been updated with new information and resources.

I’m not sure how I never noticed that sight words are everywhere — until I had a child learning to read! Sight words are on signs, buses, billboards, store fronts, and even painted on the streets. Once I realized this, my son and I laced up our shoes and headed out to find them. And what a walk it was!

What is a Sight Word Search?

You may now be wondering just what a Real World Sight Word Search is. Well, it is just what it sounds like! You simply walk around your neighborhood, find words that your child can read, and take pictures of them. That’s it — but wow, what an experience it was!

I was amazed by how many words my son knew by sight, how many he could sound out, and how many he made really good attempts at sounding out. It was humbling, to say the least. We spent about 30 minutes walking around, but had to cut our sight word search short because of the bad weather.

How to Do a Real World Sight Word Search

❍ Grab a camera or your phone
❍ Write down your child’s current sight words for reference
❍ Head out to your neighborhood, shopping center, or park
❍ Snap photos of every word your child can read
❍ When you get home, print the photos or scroll through them together
❍ Have your child read each word to a family member — instant confidence boost!

When we got home, I downloaded our pictures onto my computer. My son immediately read all the words we caught on camera to his dad. He was so proud and, well, so was his dad.

Here are the pictures we took on our Real World Sight Word Search: